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What’s This? More Real Time Search Options!?

I’ve already admitted my recent addiction to real time search. I love it, and I’ll tell you why. My experience on the Internet has been one in which most interactions take place after the fact. My guess is, instead of participating right now, most Internet users are still functioning in this delayed response mode (with delays of up to several months). But I think real time search is going to change that. I definitely don’t think it’s reached its threshold either, simply because one company can’t be identified as the leader in real time search. But mark my words; someone’s going to blow this out of the water, and when they do, we’re all going to wonder why we ever did search any other way. Maybe it’ll be LeapFish, maybe uberVu or maybe it’ll be…Collecta real time search (still in beta!).

What is Collecta?

"Collecta is not like other search engines," or so it states on it’s homepage, and for the most part, it’s true. While I recognize the value of real time search analytics, Collecta isn’t so much about that. It’s more of an experience of the Internet, as it’s happening. And from a user’s experience, I had a blast! I can’t tell you how fun it is to watch a topic as it comes in (in real time) and tweet back to someone. Really, I just find it so hard to follow conversations on Twitter, but with Collecta, I could watch what people were saying about a particular topic and actually participate in the conversation. It can also be great for getting the first comment in on a blog too. Or finding something that people are just starting to talk about. Like the fact that LeapFish is launching a new real time search feature today at 8AM EST. LeapFish says, "If you don’t understand why the Real Time Web is huge, you soon will." After a statement like that, you can bet I’ll be testing it out today! (hmmm…I wonder what one of my future blog posts will be about…)

Collecta Real Time Search Features

Back to the topic at hand. Collecta has a lot of great features. These are just a few. If you try it out and there’s something important I missed, let me know in a comment.

Open API – This could be one of the best features. Just check out all these real time search applications that have already been developed. I especially like the Firefox app. For those of you who are programmers, this is a great opportunity to make a real mark in the real time search market. This field is new enough that creating an app now could give you notoriety and lots of link love, especially if you create something people really like.

Filter search results – Filter results by type: stories, comments, updates, photos or videos. This comes in handy when you’re looking for a story to comment on or a video that no ones talking about yet.

Share your search - It wouldn’t be much of a social tool if you couldn’t share the information you gather with your tweeps and fans. So you can definitely share your search through a variety of social sites.

Track multiple searches - Collecta keeps the results of your previous searches, so you can toggle back and forth between various keyword terms you’re interested in.

Curious? Don’t just take my word for it. Go try Collecta for yourself!